At Any Price

My gaze turned back to Drake, drawn to him like a flame pulled into a hot, dry wind. I resented the heat on my cheeks. I was not a habitual blusher. Hardly ever, actually. But this man was bringing my Irish up, as my mother liked to say. And what was worse, the more annoyed I grew with him, the more amused he seemed to be.

Drake flicked a glance at Heath and then his lawyer. “Gentlemen, could you excuse us for a moment? You’re free to wait just outside the door.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced at me. “If, of course, that is okay with the lady?”

My face flamed hotter and I folded my hands on my lap. “Fine,” I said, wondering if the thirty-something New Yorker was still interested in the deal. There was no way he could be more offensive than this jerk.

Heath looked at me for confirmation and I nodded. He patted me on the shoulder and the two men exited, leaving the two of us across the table from one another, staring.

Finally he cleared his throat and laid his hands on the table before him, lacing his fingers together and dropping his gaze. “I’m sorry if my bluntness has offended you. I assumed that a woman who has placed herself on the block like you have would be comfortable with straight talk.”

I laughed. “Oh, is that what that was? I just thought you were being an asshat.”

When he smiled, the arrogance was gone and the most delicious dimple appeared at the side of his mouth. I wanted to lick that dimple, to know every nuance of its taste. I shifted in my seat, furious with myself. Why couldn’t I control these crazy, darting thoughts?

“Mr. Drake. You are not leaving me with the best impression of yourself—”

I cut off at his dry chuckle. “Do I need to? I thought my bank account did that for me.”

Anger sizzled hot and my muscles tensed. I breathed in one long draught and then released it. “I am not a prostitute and I’ll thank you not to treat me like one.”

“You’ve sold yourself. You may not see yourself as one, but clearly…” His eyes traveled down my body again.

I shook my head. I couldn’t understand his motivation for provoking me like this. As beautiful as he was, each time that he opened his mouth I was finding it harder and harder to picture myself in bed with him. “One night in my life and a bit of broken skin does not constitute prostitution.”

His dark gaze intensified, as if with one long, determined gaze he could break through my defenses. I drew back.

“Sex for money is prostitution.”

I shrugged, determined not to let him see that he was getting under my skin. “I prefer not to put a label on it. One night of my life does not define me.”

Those generous, sexy lips turned up in a knowing smile. “A lot can happen in one night.”

I couldn’t look away no matter how much I wanted to. My heart pounded, pulse screaming through my veins in concerted throbs, but my head kept telling me to kick this asshole to the curb. There were many things I would do for almost a million dollars. Submitting to this overinflated jerk might not be one of them.

He looked at me with an analytical expression that I might wear while studying platelets under a microscope. “It takes a curious type of morality to save one’s self for so long only to sell off that asset to the highest bidder.”

My jaw tightened. It was getting harder and harder to cloak my irritation with him. “You didn’t pay to get inside my head, Mr. Drake.”

To cover my discomfort, I pushed Heath’s stack of papers across the table to him. “Here’s the fine print—everything that I could think of.”

He flicked a glance at them and then away, almost bored. “I’m not going to read through that now, obviously. And, of course, I’ll have addendums of my own. Along with a nondisclosure agreement.”

I frowned. No one had said anything about an NDA to me. “You do know that I’m a blogger, right?”

“Of course. But, aside from your Manifesto, you blog exclusively about gaming, not your sex life. The document is pretty standard, with a little extra wording about our special situation”

He pushed a single sheet of paper across the desk to me. I looked it over. It did, indeed, seem standard, and it specifically mentioned the fact that I could not blog about our night together. I’d never planned to go into any details. I don’t write that kind of blog. But I did plan to mention that it had happened. I did have credibility to maintain, after all.

With a bored sniff, I asked for a pen, surprised that he handed me a two-dollar plastic thing instead of a platinum- and gold-plated ostentatious rich guy’s pen that shouted, “Look at me, I’m disgustingly wealthy.” I hurriedly scratched out my signature on the form.